Cat Tales

The first book to explore from an archaeological perspective the incredible and improbable history of our relationship with cats, from fearsome foe to purring pet.

Feared, revered and respected, cats have left an indelible pawprint on the histories and civilisations of humankind. In Britain, a third of all households have a cat. As of 2021, some 45 million American households owned one or more cats, making them one of the most popular pets in the world. Over the last two million years, cats and people have interacted in diverse and unexpected ways, but the predecessors of your furry friend were predators, not pets.

Here, for the first time, the path from deadly enemy to improbable roommate is set out through an archaeological lens by Professor of Anthropology Jerry Moore. Starting with the terrifying prehistoric scimitar-toothed cat of the Pliocene and the lion drawings of the Palaeolithic Chauvet caves, Moore journeys through our complicated history with these charismatic creatures. He travels along the Nile and across the Mediterranean, sailing on to South America, exploring pet cemeteries, cat mummies and exquisite statuary across continents and centuries.

However, our attempts to bring cats in from the cold have not always had happy endings, as Moore explores through such famous feline fanciers as Joe Exotic, Siegfried Fischbacher, and Roy Horn. Combining incredible archaeological finds with contemporary media, Cat Tales surveys ancient and modern interactions between humans and cats, wild and domestic, to ask a simple but profound question: who domesticated whom?